Managing your UK pensions from overseas - the nuts and bolts
26th September 2025
If you’re an expat, chances are you’ve got a UK pension or two (or ten) sitting in the background.
And if you’re honest, you probably haven’t given them the attention they deserve since you left the UK. You’re not alone - it’s one of the most common issues I come across when working with clients abroad.
On the surface, pensions should be straightforward. You put money in, it grows, and one day you draw from it. But the reality, especially when you live overseas, is a tangled web of rules, providers, tax quirks, and needless complexity. Let’s break it down.
And if you’re honest, you probably haven’t given them the attention they deserve since you left the UK. You’re not alone - it’s one of the most common issues I come across when working with clients abroad.
On the surface, pensions should be straightforward. You put money in, it grows, and one day you draw from it. But the reality, especially when you live overseas, is a tangled web of rules, providers, tax quirks, and needless complexity. Let’s break it down.
Advice requirements
Most UK pension providers insist you need regulated financial advice before they’ll allow you access to your pension. On the face of it, that sounds fair enough - it’s a large pot of money and the decisions you make with it are often irreversible.
Here’s the problem: UK financial advisers can’t usually advise someone who isn’t UK resident. That means, as an expat, you could be completely blocked from accessing your own money - unless you work with an international firm like ours who have terms in place with UK providers specifically to serve overseas clients.
Tax headaches
Then comes tax. Some expat hubs have double taxation agreements with the UK, some don’t. And then you have places like Thailand where the UK does have an agreement - but it doesn’t cover defined contribution pensions. That means emergency tax rates can apply, and the process of reclaiming overpaid tax from HMRC becomes part of your retirement admin.
It’s not impossible to fix, but it adds unnecessary stress to what should be a straightforward part of your planning.
Most UK pension providers insist you need regulated financial advice before they’ll allow you access to your pension. On the face of it, that sounds fair enough - it’s a large pot of money and the decisions you make with it are often irreversible.
Here’s the problem: UK financial advisers can’t usually advise someone who isn’t UK resident. That means, as an expat, you could be completely blocked from accessing your own money - unless you work with an international firm like ours who have terms in place with UK providers specifically to serve overseas clients.
Tax headaches
Then comes tax. Some expat hubs have double taxation agreements with the UK, some don’t. And then you have places like Thailand where the UK does have an agreement - but it doesn’t cover defined contribution pensions. That means emergency tax rates can apply, and the process of reclaiming overpaid tax from HMRC becomes part of your retirement admin.
It’s not impossible to fix, but it adds unnecessary stress to what should be a straightforward part of your planning.
The DFM requirement
Even when you do find providers who allow overseas management, another hurdle often appears - the requirement to appoint a Discretionary Fund Manager (DFM).
Rather than simply allocating funds on your behalf, the pension company insists that a separate DFM must be appointed. It’s often done under the guise of “client protection” but in reality, it’s another layer of complexity and cost. For many clients, it feels like hoops to jump through rather than genuine protection.
The usual pension mess
And that’s before we even touch on the normal problems everyone has with pensions:
Even when you do find providers who allow overseas management, another hurdle often appears - the requirement to appoint a Discretionary Fund Manager (DFM).
Rather than simply allocating funds on your behalf, the pension company insists that a separate DFM must be appointed. It’s often done under the guise of “client protection” but in reality, it’s another layer of complexity and cost. For many clients, it feels like hoops to jump through rather than genuine protection.
The usual pension mess
And that’s before we even touch on the normal problems everyone has with pensions:
- Multiple old pensions scattered around - sometimes four, five, six or more.
- Unsure whether they’re invested well or if they’re just drifting along.
- Confusion over costs - are they cheap, expensive, or somewhere in between?
- Legacy advisers still collecting fees for doing next to nothing.
Brigantia’s approach
At Brigantia, our job is to cut through the noise. Financial concepts are often simple at their core, but our industry has a bad habit of overcomplicating them with jargon and fancy product names. That doesn’t help you - it just makes us sound clever.
We prefer to strip things back to the essentials. What pensions do you have? How much are they worth? What are they costing you? And most importantly - how do they fit into your wider plan?
Don’t put it off!
The biggest mistake I see is procrastination. People know their pensions are out there, they know they should be doing something, but it keeps sliding down the to-do list. Years later, nothing has changed, and valuable time has been lost.
Your UK pensions can form a really important part of your financial future - but only if you actually take control of them. So don’t put it off. Get in touch now, let’s get a clear picture of what you’ve got, and make sure those savings are working for you.
Hit the button below and let’s start making sense of it all.
At Brigantia, our job is to cut through the noise. Financial concepts are often simple at their core, but our industry has a bad habit of overcomplicating them with jargon and fancy product names. That doesn’t help you - it just makes us sound clever.
We prefer to strip things back to the essentials. What pensions do you have? How much are they worth? What are they costing you? And most importantly - how do they fit into your wider plan?
Don’t put it off!
The biggest mistake I see is procrastination. People know their pensions are out there, they know they should be doing something, but it keeps sliding down the to-do list. Years later, nothing has changed, and valuable time has been lost.
Your UK pensions can form a really important part of your financial future - but only if you actually take control of them. So don’t put it off. Get in touch now, let’s get a clear picture of what you’ve got, and make sure those savings are working for you.
Hit the button below and let’s start making sense of it all.